


Tales from the Bus: Season 1

by ferggirl



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-18
Updated: 2015-02-05
Packaged: 2018-01-02 00:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 20,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1050207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferggirl/pseuds/ferggirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A place to put my unrelated Ward/Simmons, Fitz/Skye, and other pairing and team drabbles - anything too short to stand alone on here. i'm late posting, but all of these were written before the second season began. </p>
<p>(edit: chapters 19 and up are freshly posted! That's what I've got for season 1 drabbles.)</p>
<p>(note: I will be starting a new collection for stuff I write during season 2)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Is there a doctor in the house?

“ACHOO!!”

Jemma wipes at her nose ineffectually. If she can just find the allergen in the lab, she’ll –

“Ah-ah-ACHOO!”

“Ok, that’s enough. I already told you, no sneezing near the equipment,” Fitz is right behind her, looking equal parts worried and annoyed. He’s been following her around with a disinfectant for the last hour, wiping whatever she touches. “You’re sick, Jem, go rest.”

“I can’t be sick. I’m not sick!” She shakes her head, scowling back at her best friend. “We’ve just introduced something to the lab that’s causing an extreme inflammation of the mucus membranes and it’s irritating the glands in my – ACHOO!!”

“OUT.” He hands her a box of tissues and spins her toward the door. “And if I see you in here again today, I’ll send Agent Ward after you.”

The doors slide shut behind him, and she hears the interior locks click into place. Stupid Fitz. Of course she’s not sick. She’s a biochem expert. She’d know if she was –

“ACHOO!!” “Augh, Simmons!”

She opens her eyes to find Grant Ward standing directly in front of her. He takes a tissue and starts wiping down a damp spot on his chest.

“Sorry, I’m sorry. Just a reaction to something, getting on Fitz’s nerves, I’m sure it’s nothing…” There’s a heaviness in her head that makes the words hard to string together. “Sorry.”

 

******

It takes Grant three tissues to be sure he’s clean. When he’s done he stuffs them in his pocket and looks down at her wan face.

No wonder Fitz has asked for backup.

When the call had come in, they’d been in a meeting about weaponry and tactics on the case they had just completed. For some reason, Skye, May and Coulson had all looked to him when Fitz reported that Simmons was in denial and spewing germs.

He’s pretty sure May muttered “takes one to know one” on his way out.

Still, Jemma looks awful.

“Do me a favor,” he says, sliding a hand under her elbow and taking the tissues into the other hand. “Come over here and sit down. You look like you’re about to fall over.”

She resists for a moment, but a soft tug gets her moving. Still, she protests.

“I have degrees in molecular biology and organic chemistry and I will not be told that I am ill when I am clearly just inflamed…”

But she shivers under his hand. And when he reaches the seats next to the medical closet, she sinks down gratefully.

“I would have expected,” she sniffles, “the symptoms to diminish once I left the lab.”

He’s quiet as he rifles for a biometrics reader. Her right hand is ice cold when he lifts it to slide the unit over her wrist, and for the first time he’s worried.

“Simmons,” he tries, but she’s staring blankly at the numbers flying across the biometric unit’s screen. “ _Jemma_.”

She looks up, her eyes bleary.

“You said this must be something in the lab? That caused you to react like this.” he puts a hand to her forehead and tries to gauge its relative heat. She closes her eyes and leans into him. Medical has never been his strong suit – too much person-to-person interaction involved.

But this is Jemma. He can do this. “Is it something we brought back from the mission?” She shakes her head once, and he remembers to pull his hand away.

“All the samples were scanned and cross-checked,” she slumps back against the wall. “I don’t understand.”

The biometric reader finally beeps its readiness, and they both reach for it. He shoots her an exasperated look, moving her cold left hand away as he removes the unit.

“Don’t worry, square, I’ll show you the readout.” He steps over to a wall computer, and gives the command for the results to show on screen. He can hear her shuffling up beside him.

“Square?”

“Two doctorates, right? A doctor squared.”

She laughs, but she looks tired, and cold, and he’s pulling off his leather jacket before he can think twice about it. It’s too big for her, but she holds it closed and smiles.

“I’ve wanted one for ages,” she says. “But this might be a hair too long. Oh, wait, scroll back.”

He pauses the statistics, and watches as she holds an internal discussion with herself. He can see on her face as she entertains theories and discards them, and if she wasn’t so sick he’d be thoroughly amused by the silent argument.

“And the verdict, before I make you sit down again?”

“This can’t be right.”

He’s got visions of unique spider bites or viruses known only in the river basin they’ve recently left. Scary illnesses with no easy cure. “What is it? Jemma?”

“The flu. Where on earth would I have gotten the flu?”

The relief surprises him. She’ll be miserable for a few days, and the team will have to do without her while she sleeps this off. But no fatal spider bites.

“Well, I may not be any kind of doctor,” he pulls her away from the display, which she is glaring at as though it’s deliberately let her down. “But even I know what the solution for the flu is rest.”

“But maybe if I mix some naproxen with a heavy grade…” she starts to turn to the medicine locker, but he holds her in place.

“Is it safe?”

“Well…”

“Has it been tested before?”

“Not exactly…”

“Is there a chance you could make yourself sicker?”

“It’s very minor…”

“That’s it,” he says. He grabs a bottle of pills and hooks one arm under her knees and swings her up against his chest. “Fever reducer. Bed time. You can cure the influenza virus when you’re well.”

She glares at him, but she’s asleep by the time he’s reached her cubby. He pulls her shoes off and tucks her in, putting the pills and a bottle of water on her nightstand.

He’ll get the jacket back. Later.


	2. Is this a test?

He can’t stop pacing. It’s embarrassing, really.

Skye and Agent May have been gone for an hour now. The veteran field operative is putting his rookie through her paces, to see if she is ready for field certification. He’s been drilling her for weeks on procedure, doing twice-a-day workouts and target practice. She’s been learning at an impressive speed.

And he can’t stop pacing.

He’s making his third circuit of the plane when he impulsively swings into the lab, hoping the science chatter will dull his edge of panic.

But it’s just Simmons, bent over a bubbling tub of…  _something_.

He waits, watching her complete concentration as she takes readings. He doesn’t want to startle her; it could be a vat of flesh-eating microbes and she’s developed a rather alarming clumsy streak around him lately. She is supposed to clear anything dangerous before bringing it on board, but he’s noticed that her definition of dangerous falls somewhere around Hagrid’s in Harry Potter.

Not that he can tell anyone on the team that particular insight. He’s not sure it would help him maintain his special operative mystique to discuss the finer points of wizardry.

At any rate, he stays quiet until she straightens and takes a few steps to the side.

“I didn’t know we’d salvaged any goo from the wreck,” he says. Sure enough, she squeaks and nearly drops the glass she’d been holding. He catches it before it can hit the counter, and she cuts him an irritated look.

“It’s… it’s not  _goo_ , Agent Ward. This is a potentially alien slime that is reproducing at a rather unprecedented rate and has incredibly unique responses to common stimuli.” As is always the case, her face gets more animated as she talks about her oozy charge. “I haven’t actually figured out what it is using to produce energy – it hasn’t consumed any of the various sugars or vegetable products I’ve tried to feed it.”

“Wait, you’ve been feeding the alien goo?”

She plows ahead. “And it actually rejected the pen I accidentally dropped into the container.” She points at an uncapped bic under a scanner across the room. “As far as I can tell, it came out perfectly clean. Not a single cell of the stuff stuck to it. Which is just unexplainably strange. Isn’t that exciting?”

He hums noncommittally. He doesn’t like the sound of unexplainable goo that’s reproducing too fast.

“Where’s Fitz?”

She turns away from him to her microscope. “Uh, he just, um, stepped out for some air.”

“You’re a terrible liar, Doctor Simmons.”

“Yes, well, the odds are stacked against me on this team, aren’t they?” she mutters. “Best spy scores since Romanoff, the Cavalry herself, agent Coulson, and a former member of an underground network of truth-seekers.” The mass spectrometer dings, and she hurries over to check the readout. “I might be an excellent fibber, you’re all just bloody lie detectors.”

He grins. She’s not wrong. He leans against a counter in silence for a few minutes, inexplicably calmed by her single-minded bustle around the lab. Usually, he finds the two scientists amusing, but a bit overwhelming. But with Fitz gone, it’s almost peaceful.

“So, that was an excellent redirect, and I gave you some time to work on your story.” From the way she startles and looks up at him, he’s relatively sure she’s been using that time for science, and not for concocting a better lie. He steps closer, crowding her just enough to see her lips part and her eyes widen. “Are you going to tell me where he really is?”

It’s interesting to watch the decisions move across her face. She takes a deep breath, and straightens her spine. He’s not expecting her to lean in to his space.

“I may be a scientist,” she says, her eyes narrowing, “but don’t think for a minute that I have not read the field manuals. That I haven’t been watching as you, and Agent May, and Skye and Coulson operate. I collect observations, deconstruct physiological reactions and understand the chemistry of the brain better than anyone on this plane.”

They stand, toe to toe, a breath apart. She’s not willing to be the first to step away, he notes with approval, and he’s too busy enjoying the challenge she’s just laid in front of him.

Then something buzzes loudly in the corner of the lab. She ignores it at first, but as it gets more insistent, she rolls her eyes and steps away.

“Dammit, Fitz.” It’s under her breath, but he catches enough. She storms over to the noisy instrument, flips a few switches and hits a blue button on the side. Then she picks up the radio lying next to it.

“Reset and ready to go.”

“You’re the best, Jemma!” Fitz’s Scottish accent is unmistakable.

“Not sure you’ll think that later,” she murmurs as she puts the radio back in its holder.

Grant is waiting patiently, his suspicions building. When she finally turns back to him, she has her arms crossed and a mulish look on her face.

“Coulson didn’t approve any testing for today.”

“It’s not really… I wouldn’t call this a test, exactly.”

“You just manually restarted a piece of equipment for your partner in crime and alerted him via walkie-talkie.” He grins. “Simmons, I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Listen, you’ve got the wrong idea,” she’s backpedaling now. “It’s a small side project. Barely using SHIELD resources.”

“Interesting that he’s testing it at the same time that Skye’s having her agent training.” She tries to hide the flinch, but he’s watching for it. “Just tell me two things: does Skye know?”

“No! No. He was just trying… he wanted to…” she throws up her hands. “What’s the second question?”

“Will it in any way affect the testing or disqualify the results?”

Her face is serious, which he appreciates. As fun as science shenanigans can be, a field test is a matter of permanent record. And the agency is already wary of Skye. If irregularities come to light…

“Unless the damn thing crashes into her, no. No one should know it’s there.”

He raises an eyebrow. She takes the hint.

“He’s got a huge crush on her. Obviously. We all know this,” she sighs. “And she’s been so excited about this test, and he thought he’d build a mini-heli with a video recorder so she could have it on film. For the record I told him it was a bad idea.”

“I don’t suppose you’d tell me where he is, so I can express my own reservations?” His voice is tight, but he manages a rueful smile.

She smiles back, and shakes her head.

“Sorry, Agent Ward, I’m under strict orders to feed you to the slime if necessary.”

They both turn, then, to look at the bubbling container of goo. It’s spilling slightly out of the container, and appears to be lapping at the open can of peaches sitting on the floor next to it.

She gives an excited giggle and scampers toward it. Grant only manages to catch her arm, and swings her back into his body.

“Ooof, what are you doing?” she’s a bit muffled, speaking into his chest. “I need to observe its foraging habits!”

He sets her back away from him slightly, but keeps a firm grip on her arms. “Simmons, that alien goo is escaping from its tank and you are NOT going to poke at it without proper precautions.”

“Oh, come on, it’s totally harmless. I stuck my hand in earlier and it didn’t even nibble.”

He swings both her hands up to his eye line, concerned, and she laughs.

“I’m kidding, Agent Ward. I do know how to do my job, thank you very much. But if it will make that overprotective side of yours feel better, you can hold the blowtorch while I prod at it.” She rises on her tiptoes and whispers in his ear. “It doesn’t like fire at all.”

She’s shifting away, mind already on to the next task, when he pulls her back toward him and covers her mouth with his own. She’s startled but recovers quickly, her hands rising to his neck as she moves in closer. She tastes like strawberry jam and tea, and he’s wondering what took him so long to make a move.

When they break apart, she blinks a few times and then smiles. “Apparently I should have offered you the blowtorch ages ago.”

He laughs and leans his forehead against hers. “Just wear your damn gloves, Jemma.”


	3. Falling apart

“I think you’re not telling us something, and I’d rather not die because you have a few extra secrets you’re keeping!”

One of Melinda May’s many exceptional qualities is her ability to be heard without raising her voice. Another, Grant Ward notes silently, is being one of a handful of SHIELD agents who don’t have to call Coulson “sir.”

They’ve dismissed the younger team members – Fitz will be busy modifying his new leg cast with nanotech. It’s a minor break, but it did make their exit plan a little more exciting than it should have been. Skye is sulking in her quarters, because after only a few weeks and a major betrayal of trust, she still hates being excluded from meetings. Jemma has paced through Grant’s peripheral vision three times already since this discussion started.

It’s distracting.

“I brought you back here because there is no one better,” Coulson says, his normally amused tone gone hard. “But officially, you just drive the bus.”

Grant fights the urge to take a step back as May swells with very quiet, very deadly rage.

“You wanted me in the field from the start. You’re not pulling me now that I’ve got questions,” she growls.

“Of course not.” Just like that, the edge is gone and Coulson is Coulson again. Grant’s getting a bit of whiplash. There are very subtle signs and cues flying, and he’s seeing them but not understanding. May was leaning against the door, but is now standing, arms crossed. Coulson has been playing with one of his models, but is now seated at his desk. Neither has raised their voice, but Grant feels like he’s just witnessed a battle.

“Then we’ll continue this conversation when we are back on U.S. soil,” May turns to go, nodding to Grant on her way out. Her face is stony, and he’s not sure who won.

“Did you need anything, Agent Ward?”

“Uh, just confirmation that these orders are correct, sir.” Jemma crosses his field of vision once more; she is apparently not waiting around to speak to Agent May. He digs into his pocket and pulls out the memo that had appeared in his locker this morning. “Skye has a tendency to hack my personal files when she is particularly bored, so I wanted to make sure…”

Coulson glances at the note and hands it back. “No that one’s real. Agency wide reallocation. Begin immediately.” At Grant’s incredulous look, he amends the order. “Better give Fitz a week or two to heal up. But Simmons starts today.”

“And Skye?”

“I’ll take over her training.”

Grant swallows, unsure how he feels about that. He’s still angry at her, still hurt by the enormity of the betrayal. But since Coulson kept her on, Grant’s her S.O. It’s hard to let go of that so suddenly.

Besides, she does seem genuinely sorry. She’d even given him back the battleship she’d kept as a trophy, taped to a card with a hand-drawn sadface.

“Sir, that’s not necessary, I can-”

“Call it a temporary change,” Coulson waves him quiet. “But I’m taking over the day to day with Skye. Anything else?”

He stares at the memo in his hand.

**_Orders:_ ** _To prepare Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons for individual field duty certification - including firearms, hand-to-hand combat and covert operations._

_**Objective:** _ _To create a S.H.I.E.L.D. science corps of agents ready to deploy with any elite team at any time._

_**Reassignment:** _ _Pending._

“No. No sir.” He hadn’t wanted a team in the first place. Why does it bother him so much to see this one falling apart?

Jemma storms up beside him as he exits Coulson’s office.

“Was it you?” Her voice is tight with anger and disappointment. “Did you put in for us to be reassigned?” She waves a piece of paper in his face and he grabs it. A glance tells him it’s the twin to his own orders.

He shakes his head. “I’m as confused as you are.”

“I don’t understand,” her face falls; seeing it confirmed on his own printout seems to have shaken her. “Have we done something wrong? I thought if Skye was staying, maybe the team would survive this…”

“Coulson said it’s agency-wide, I don’t think it’s got anything to do with you or Fitz.” He casts about for something encouraging to say. If this were Skye he’d mock her life choices or roll his eyes. But even he knows those options won’t get him far right now. “This could be great for you. With the work you and Fitz have been doing, you might get pulled back to Stark Tower.”

It’s not the right move. He can tell when she spins away from him. “Oh,  _Stark Tower_. Back to New York City and research labs and protocols and projects that never make sense because I only see the bits they want me to see.”

He forgets, sometimes. That she wanted this position so badly, she’d talked Leo Fitz, one of the least field-ready engineers in SHIELD, into signing on with her. That she lights up when a new case comes in. That she still has a vat of alien sludge in her lab and she feeds it grapes.

Sometimes between the danger and the drama and the drudgery, he forgets that she’s the only one, aside from Coulson, who always saw this as a team.

“Look,” he reaches out hesitantly, because as Skye would say, he cannot people. But she lets him turn her back to face him. “Who knows what Fury is thinking with these reassignment notices. But Coulson knows how good you are, and we all know you want to be here. We’ll fight for you.”

She sniffles a little, and glares up at him. “You can’t punch Director Fury to fix this, Ward.”

He grins at that. “He took away your fish tank. Watch me.”

He’s expecting a smile, and he’s not disappointed. He’s not expecting the hug, but it’s a nice surprise. She fits right into the curve of his shoulder and for a minute he lets himself believe that they can do this – the two of them can salvage this disaster of a team because Jemma Simmons wants him to.

When she steps away, she’s more composed. “Well, if my lip-reading was accurate, Coulson wanted me to start training today.” Grant nods, and is about to assure her that they can start slow when she continues. “I do have a schedule in mind that will let me feed Wilbur at appropriate intervals, and give me time to check in on Fitz. I’m a little concerned he might burn the lab down he’s so bored.”

“Wilbur? Schedule? Fitz does realize we’re on a plane, right?” His dry disbelief is tempered by the smile he can’t hold in.

“I believe you call Wilbur my sludge. Wildly inaccurate and biologically unhelpful,” she grins back. “Fitz goes in and out of basic common sense and does not handle inactivity well. And I was thinking we’d do physical training in the mornings, study covert ops after lunch and then evenings can be target practice and hand-to-hand. Three hours for each will suffice, as long as I get appropriate breaks to monitor ongoing lab work.”

He shakes his head. “I’m a little concerned that I just acquired an S.O., and not the other way around.” She bites her lip, and it’s adorable. “Not that I have a problem with that.”

“I promise not to make you memorize scientific theorems,” she says. “I wouldn’t want you deciding that Fury was right.”

He nudges her in the direction of the training rooms. “Don’t worry. I’m on your side. I really wanted that fish tank.”


	4. I keep on falling

In her dreams, she’s still falling through the sky.

She hasn’t hit ground, not yet, she just wakes with a racing heart and clammy palms. It’s been three days since she jumped. Three long nights since she realized two things with perfect clarity: she does not want to die, and she will not take her team down with her when she does. She’s still waiting for the world to stabilize around her.

Jemma stares down at the mug of tea in her hands. Fitz has been difficult. She knows how hard it would hit her if he pulled something like that, if he stepped out into nothingness as she watched helplessly.

She understands. But it doesn’t mean the quiet staring and nervous smiles that don’t reach his haunted eyes aren’t wearing. She loves Fitz. She got him fuzzy dinosaur slippers for last Christmas, and he stayed the night in her parents’ spare room. He’s her best friend.

But every time she has to reassure him, she feels a little less ok.

They sat up together, that first night, Fitz and Skye and Ward and Jemma. Ward found a few beers in the backup fridge and doled them out to whoever could get a paper ball into a waste basket. Skye won three, and Jemma one. Fitz tried a few times, until Skye took pity and shared her loot.

When he and Skye started yawning, Jemma shooed them off to bed. Then she sat back down and let her happy mask slip just a little.

Ward would understand. If anyone could.

He told her that she probably wouldn’t sleep that night. Adrenaline and brushes with death tended to keep your mind awake. Then he downed his beer and nodded at her.

“I’ll be working out for a while if you need company. Had an adrenaline rush of my own today.”

She’d gone to check on Fitz, found him clutching his pillow. “You’re the hero,” she said, and meant it. But she knew the look in his eyes. He was always hardest on himself.

When she went to her own room, the window shade was still up, as she’d left it that morning. For a second she froze, convinced the glass would shatter and she’d be sucked out of the tiny hole, this time gone where Ward couldn’t follow.

But Jemma was a scientist, and her mind supplied statistics on airplane window malfunctions (nearly non-existant) and material strength (that plastic was an inch thick and bulletproof) and so she found the nerve to dig her pajamas out of the drawer and slide into her bed. But when she closed her eyes, she was falling.

She tried to outlast it. Forced herself to keep her eyes shut and just ignore the feeling of freefall.

When she came awake in tears, she knew Ward was right.

She sat on the stairs, not wanting to disturb his rhythm. He was ducking and weaving around the bag, using hands and feet in soothing repetition. Punch, punch, kick. Kick, punch, punch. She distracted herself from the way his muscles bunched up when he drew back to release a punch by calculating the force possible from a man his size at close range in her head.

It was impressive.

“Want a turn?” he paused, holding the bag still. He used a towel to wipe the sweat off his face, and held out a hand.

“I’m not exactly in my boxing clothes,” she said, but she still got up.

“You weren’t exactly in skydiving clothes either,” he said with a half-smile. “We’ll work with it.”

He wrapped her hands, and at her insistence, her feet. She wanted to kick something.

She was expecting the frustrated impatience that she saw when he worked with Skye. She was expecting him to let her flail a bit. She wasn’t expecting him to come up behind her and move her arms into the proper fighting stance.

When he nudged her knee into better position with his leg, she almost squeaked.

“Remember, it’s a quick motion, but you need to follow it through,” he said. He was so much taller, especially with her barefoot, that she felt the rumble of his chest against her head. “You always punch with your thumbs out, so you don’t break one. Retract quickly so you don’t get caught by the bag recoiling.”

“You told Skye to retract so she was ready to throw her next punch.”

He laughed, and she melted just a little. It was such a rare sound. “That’s because I think she could sometimes benefit from getting smacked by the bag recoil. Have you been eavesdropping on my training, Dr. Simmons?”

“How else would I perfect my spot-on impersonations?” Somehow, impossibly, this banter was easy. Wasn’t Grant Ward supposed to be terrible with people?

They circled the bag for an hour, him coaching her on timing, technique, the proper angry face to make at her enemies. She was sweating and soaked through when she finally missed a punch because her arms were shaking with fatigue that hit her hard and fast. She set up to try again, but he gently tugged her back.

“You don’t want to hurt yourself,” he said softly, his eyes dark with concern.

So she showered and said goodnight. The exhaustion put her under for a few hours, but she came awake in the same panic.

******

She’s adopted a little routine. A cheerful wave when everyone else turns in followed by an hour or two of reading in a fully-lit sleeping cabin. Once she’s sure the deck is quiet, she sneaks down to the lab with a cup of tea and checks on her work, catalogues old cases, or sometimes sits and stares at the closed cargo bay doors.

Tonight she’s staring. The sleeplessness is starting to catch up with her and the team has noticed. May gave her a pitying look earlier when she stumbled over the scientific name of the common lemur. Skye keeps offering a girl’s night, with bad movies and nail polish. Fitz is too quiet, biting his lip and worrying about the dangers that have just become all too real. Coulson at least has seemed a bit distant and distracted.

Grant Ward knows this because he can’t stop watching her. He’s trying to give her some space and normalcy, to stay out of her way as she works through things. It’s hard to watch her pace that lab again, looking so desperately tired and alone.

He wants to help. But there are so many others on the team with more right, more knowledge of her. Surely she doesn’t need Grant butting in awkwardly.

And yet they’re asleep, and he’s in the conference room watching her stare into her mug of tea.

She pushes away from the counter, wiping at her eyes as she walks to the lab doors, and something in him breaks. He’s done watching her suffer. There has to be something he can do.

He’s halfway down the stairs when he realizes where she’s going. She’s dug out his hand wraps, and is attempting to secure her left hand with her teeth. No weeping in a chair for Jemma. She wants to punch something.

He bites back a smile. “Need a hand?”

She jumps. “Ok, super spy, you win at stealth.” After another attempt, she sighs and holds it out to him. “Yes, please. I don’t seem to have the knack.”

He adjusts the wrap to best protect her knuckles. Her hand is cold, and her eyes are bloodshot. She gives him her right hand without asking, and he quietly wraps that as well.

“Feet?”

“Not tonight,” she says. “I’d probably just fall over.”

It’s the first time he’s heard her admit to exhaustion.

Her reflexes are much slower than two nights ago. He finds himself mirroring her movements, wanting to be there if she slips. He feels like he’s at least earned the right to catch her.

He tries to remind her of posture, of rhythm, but she can’t seem to find the groove. Still, she keeps swinging every time he gently readjusts her stance.

She sinks to the floor after half an hour, frustrated and wiping sweat and tears away with the backs of her hands.

“I can’t sleep,” she gasps. He crouches next to her, wishing he had some magic fix, wanting to make her ok with all of his hidden heart. “I’m always falling.”

He pulls her up, leading her to the couch in the lounge. They fit neatly in next to each other, close but not quite touching.

“The first time I killed a man, I threw up all over my S.O.” She hiccups and looks at him. “I’d been off since it happened, but I held it together in front of the team, in front of my mission partner, until I walked into his office. All over his desk.” He mimes something shooting from his mouth. “Projectile.”

“Disgusting,” she says softly, “but somehow relevant?”

He nudges her shoulder with his own. “Of course. I was sure I needed to seem fine to everyone else in order to be a good agent. But I wasn’t fine. No one’s fine after something like that. And holding it in just made it worse.”

They sit there, quietly, as she digests and he tries not to focus on the warmth of her shoulder pressing into his. He starts talking again to distract himself.

“I’m not sleeping well either, you know,” he says. “This incredibly brave scientist keeps doing bad impressions of me as she jumps out of planes without a parachute.” His tone is joking, but the fear he’d felt as he leapt down those spiral stairs to find Fitz struggling with a chute in the roaring wind lingers underneath.

In his dreams, he’s always too late.

“That nasal tone would keep anyone up at night.” Her smile is wan, but her eyes are laughing at him.

She leans her head on his shoulder and he has to swallow twice to get his next words out.

“You know what we should do?”

“Hmmm?” She sounds sleepy, and a glance at her face shows her eyes drooping.

“Next time we’re parked, I’ll give you three skydiving lessons,” he says. She murmurs something too soft for him to hear, and the weight of her head increases as she slips into sleep. “We’ll bring Skye and Fitz and learn all the safety and procedures, and then maybe we’ll do some tandem jumps.”

There’s no response.

“You just need to know that you can get yourself to the ground,” he says, watching her shoulders rise and fall with her even breathing.

He’s there to catch her, twice, as she come gasping out of the nightmare. Both times she burrows closer as she slides back to sleep. He gives in and wraps his arm around her after she’s curled into his side. She doesn’t wake again.

Skye finds them in the morning, a cup of coffee in one hand and black tea in the other. Jemma awakens slowly, realization hitting her in waves. When she edges over to the other side of the couch, Grant misses her warmth. 

Fitz comes sidling in a few minutes later with snacks. No one comments on the sleeping arrangements. There’s companionable silence until Jemma pipes up.

“So, I’m thinking of taking skydiving lessons.”

All three turn to stare at her.

“I think maybe doing it again, on purpose, and knowing how to land…” she swallows and looks at Grant. “I… I’m not sleeping. I think it might help.”

Skye and Fitz erupt into supportive chatter. Hugs are exchanged. It’s like she’s broken through the wall she’d built between her and her best friends. Grant stays put and drinks his coffee.

But when her eyes seek his, he smiles. 


	5. Souvenirs

He’s going through the mission in his head, reviewing protocols and building plans when she says quietly, ”So you’ll be gone a week, then?”

He’s surprised. She’s never awake at this hour. He wonders how long she’s been worrying; he can hear it under her cheerful attempt at an innocuous question. 

Jemma’s learned so much in their time on the Bus, but she’s still a ridiculously bad liar. 

He turns to face her, hooking an arm around her waist and dragging her across the bed to him. They wind up nose to nose. Hers is a little cold, and he smiles as he taps it with his own. 

"Maybe less. May thinks they just want backup in case Romanoff goes off the rails."

She sighs and snuggles into him, her skin smooth and pale in the early morning light filtering through the open airplane window. 

"And has Coulson mentioned -"

"No, Jemma. No playing backup." He’s stern, but he kisses her forehead to soften the blow. "Not this time. It’s a purely black ops mission, I only got called onto it when Barton went missing."

"Yes, but  _why_ did he go missing? And what if you’re facing something that you need Fitz or me to decipher?”

"We’ve got Maria Hill, Romanoff, May, and four other top-notch operatives. It’s going to be fine. We get Barton, eliminate the target, and get out," he promises. She’s still worried, so his hands drift lower, kneading at the tension in her back, and then lower, drifting over the rise and fall of her hips until she flushes. "I’ll bring you back a t-shirt."

"Mmmm, yes please," she says, stretching into his touch with a smile. "I’ve never been to Budapest."


	6. Drink with me

"This. is.  _delicious_.” Jemma slams back her third shot, and both Fitz and Grant eye the tequila bottle at her side with some concern. 

Skye glares at the two of them, and tops off hers and Jemma’s glasses. “Damn straight. Nothing like tequila when you need to not think.”

Fitz is sipping his morosely. “I mean, sometimes actually talking is.. is a better solution than drinking until you can’t see straight,” he mutters.

Grant kicks him in warning and holds out his own shot glass. Skye grins at him as she fills it, but it’s Jemma’s reaction that makes the alcohol bearable. She giggles. 

"Oh my goodness!" she says, a smile still on her face, "can we get Agent Grant Ward plastered?"

He sighs and checks the reactions of the room. Fitz looks intrigued, Skye looks demonic, and Jemma looks hopeful. Hopeful and so sad. 

So he’ll be getting drunk tonight, then. 

"You’re gonna need a bigger bottle," he says with a wink, tossing back the mid-level tequila. It doesn’t burn like the cheap crap, at least, but he and May have a bottle of the good stuff hidden in the conference room, so he’s gotten spoiled. 

Skye burps and rolls her eyes, prompted another set of giggles - from Fitz this time. Grant’s reasonably sure he hasn’t actually finished his first shot. 

They take bets on how long it will take until Ward starts slurring their organization’s full name. “Stragshic Homelandinvenshun enforcerment and logicssh divideshion” doesn’t happen until shot number 7. 

Skye has long since fallen asleep on the couch. Fitz is snoring next to her. 

Jemma’s still laboriously ticking off his shot count, and they both snicker when they finally realize that he’s completely failed. 

But she hasn’t had a drink since - since Skye fell asleep, Ward realizes. He runs a hand over his face, willing the room to stop spinning and finds her sitting next to him, a glass of water in her hand.

He takes it gratefully.

"That was mean, sorry," she says. "I’m not usually so…"

"Jemma," he says, then stops. He doesn’t want to slur at her, so he carefully selects his next words. "I like to see you shmile, no,  _smile_. I’ll live.”

They’re on the loveseat, facing their snoozing companions on the couch. After a moment, she taps the glass, reminding him to finish the water. When he tips it back, she takes it and puts it on the floor. Then she tucks her legs up under her and leans against him.

"You ok?" It’s a terrible question. He’d never be so insensitive but, god, that was a  _lot_  of tequila. 

"No," she says quietly. "But I will be. She was so proud of me, you know. Dad never got it, but Mum. Mum thought I was the coolest person in the world."

He turns and kisses her on the top of he head, letting an arm come down around her shoulders. 

"I’m sorry," he says. "I wish we could have met her." He can feel himself slipping asleep, the pull of the alcohol too strong to ignore as he drifts into darkness. 

******

Jemma looks around at the three of them. Silly Fitz, so sad himself, curled up next to Skye, who’s splayed over the couch like a starfish. Skye, who had blackmailed a bottle of tequila out of Coulson, and dug up four shot glasses and hugged her every ten minutes today. 

Ward’s head drops to gently rest on top of hers, and she closes her eyes for a minute. Grant Ward, always ready, always in protector mode. Even when drunk, she thinks, he’s taking the brunt of it to make her feel better. 

"She would have loved you guys," she whispers, a tear rolling down her cheek. "I know I do."


	7. Top Shelf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grant Ward is really tall.

"FITZ!" She glares around the empty lab, frustrated, and starts randomly opening lower cabinets. "Where did you put the stool? Oh,  _why_  do we insist on using these top shelves? Only a giant or… or  _Ward_ could reach up there.”

"Or a very smart monkey." She straightens up to see Grant Ward’s laughing face, and it stops her in her tracks. He doesn’t laugh that often. She always gets a funny tingle in her chest when he does. _  
_

He raises an eyebrow and she realizes he’s said something. 

"Sorry?" She brushes her hands down her skirt and chides herself.  _Unprofessional, Jemma._  “I was still thinking of ways to slowly dissolve Fitz in a vat of flesh-eating bacteria.”

"Of course you were," he grins again, easily, and she wonders why she ever thought he was dour or humorless. "I just asked if I could put my giant-like status to good use."

"Oh! Yes," she nods enthusiastically. "I’ve just, you see up there? Some idiot’s shelved my live-growth sample of the alien tissue on the top and it’s really  _vitally_  important that it be moved at once.”

He reaches for it.

"By me!" she squeaks, grabbing at his hand. "Sorry. I know you’ve got steady hands but this is the only sample we have from an entire alien species and the less it’s out of my direct supervision, the better."

Ward’s quiet for a minute, considering. Then his hands go around her waist, and she’s suddenly face to face with her precious sample. 

"Right," she says after she catches her breath. "Perfect, thanks."

He’s quiet while she eases the petri dish off the shelf and lowers her smoothly once she nods her readiness. He isn’t even breathing heavily.

He waits while she slides the precious sample into a safe spot in the lab refrigerator. When she stands up, finally satisfied, he nods and heads for the door.

"Just shout next time, Simmons," he smiles. "Happy to help."

Fitz turns up a few minutes later with the stool in hand, full of apologies. She waves him off. 

"I’ve been far too strict about the stool," she says with a distracted smile. "Borrow it any time."


	8. Wonderful, intimidating, brilliant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On friendship, candy and weird kisses.

"You’re wonderful," she blurts out, one day in the lab.  

She and Skye are tossing ideas back and forth, with Jemma translating the more advanced scientific concepts as well as she can, and Skye rewarding them with Skittles each time they come up with another possible cause of the anomaly. Fitz has made a sandwich run, as it’s been his turn for about a week and Jemma’s patience is wearing thin.

Skye looks up at her exclamation, and grins. “You too, weirdo.”

Ward sticks his head into the lab, then, and looks between the two of them. “Are you three getting anywhere besides a sugar high?”

Jemma cocks an eyebrow at Skye, and the two turn, straight faced, back to the specialist at the door. They proceed to pelt him with Skittles until he swats a few back and reminds them there’s a meeting in half an hour.  

Fitz complains when he gets back that the Skittles are gone, but he’s easy enough to distract with the list of ideas. They contingency plan for ten of them before the meeting. Number seven turns out to be right. 

They both find full size bags of Skittles on their beds that night. Skye’s sure that Coulson was spying on them, but Jemma sees a suspicious twinkle in Grant’s eyes. 

******

"You know that’s incredibly intimidating, right?" Skye asks, after Jemma’s presented the basic findings to a room full of S.H.I.E.L.D. and civilian scientists. She’s just sat back down at the team table, and is waiting for her stomach to settle. 

"You’re telling me," Jemma mutters, "I’m not sure I can feel my feet, I was so nervous."

Skye laughs and swings an arm around her. “No, I meant the way you stared down a 4-star general just then and explained very politely that dendrochronology has nothing to do with dentistry, thank you very much.”

Fitz snorts his approval. “Yes, well, he should have read the summary if he didn’t want her to correct him.”

Even Melinda May smiles. “I never liked Roberts. Nice job, kid.”

Ward just winks at her, but he slips her a napkin full of hors d’oeurves when they get back to the plane. “Noticed you weren’t eating,” he says with a funny little clear of his throat. “The cookies were too good to miss.”

Skye tackles her later, full of the way she noticed Ward acting quite innocuous about how much food he was stashing in his pockets. Jemma produces her little napkin and they laugh about it. Skye waggles her eyebrows and Jemma blushes a little as she quickly denies that anything besides kindness was behind the gesture.

******

"Simmons, pay attention. I need you to be brilliant, now." Coulson is sharp, pulling her attention away from the security camera footage, where Skye and Ward are pressed up against a wall, playing amorous couple as they wait for the guards to walk past. 

Fitz touches her gently on the arm and she’s back, walking them through the plan, reminding Grant - no,  _Ward_ \- how long he’ll have once the serum starts to interact with the chemically enhanced super soldier. Melinda checks in from her bird’s eye view, then moves to be in a more active role. 

The mission goes off without a hitch. The team is drinking beer, sans Coulson, but Jemma’s heart isn’t in it. She pleads exhaustion and ducks out, not feeling the two pairs of eyes who follow her progress. 

Her quarters are too quiet, and she’s just sitting on her bed staring at the wall when there’s a knock on her door. 

"Jemma?" Skye sounds tentative. "Jemma I’m coming in."

The door beeps and Jemma grimaces as Skye sits down next to her. 

"You’re not supposed to have our door codes, you know. Makes you look a bit too much on the hacker side of brilliant."

"Eh, I don’t abuse the privilege."

"No, I suppose you don’t."

They lapse into quiet then, until Skye shoulder-bumps her gently. 

"So that was weird, huh?"

"Sorry?"

"It was his fault, you know. He took too long to clear his side of the room. We were 30 seconds off the schedule and just didn’t have time to clear the alley."

Ah.  _That._

"It wound up fine, the whole thing went off without a hitch…"

"Jemma." Skye’s tone is reproachful. "Come on, we’re friends. That was weird. Talk to me."

"It wasn’t weird. It can’t be weird. There’s nothing for it to be weird about." She buries her head in her hands and wishes she could just be fine. Just cut out the jealousy with a scalpel and drop it in the disposal bin with the rest of her unhelpful feelings.

Skye sighs. “We were undercover. It’s not - we’re not like that, Jemma. Do you really think I could poke and tease and wink at you about him and then turn around and have that  _mean_ something?”

"Don’t treat me like a child," her chilly tone is mostly defense, but she does hate to be told what to feel. Even by her second best friend. "You matter so much to him. He would do anything to keep you safe out there."

Skye leans her head against Jemma’s shoulder. “He would. But that’s just who he is. Everyone’s big brother. Fitz calls him Mr. Save the Day, remember?”

Jemma sniffs back a tear, and shakes her head yes. 

"Did we sell it so the guards wouldn’t look too closely at us? Yeah we did," Skye says, twisting her skirt between her fingers. "I am happy to report back that he is quite a good kisser, not too much tongue, no weird wet stuff. But he doesn’t save little cookies for me. He doesn’t smile at me when I’m nervous, he punches me and tells me to pay more attention. I saw his face before he jumped from this plane after you, and when he brought you back onto it."

"Skye, don’t," Jemma whispers. "I’m just being stupid."

"No," she shakes her head against Jemma’s shoulder. "The second I figured out what the plan was, I knew you’d be watching. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I kissed him first. I’m not  _that_ sorry, because I’m pretty happy to be alive. But it’s you he wants, Jemma. It’s always you. It’s always been you.”

"Oh stop being all poetic and give me the chocolate I know you brought."

"Does that mean I’m forgiven?"

"You were in the field," Jemma says, wiping at her eyes with determination. "Shit happens."

"Why you foul-mouthed biochemist," Skye grins. "I brought Reese’s."

******

When she finally gets verification of her own (he is an  _excellent_  kisser, and she’s quite impressed with how he uses his hands, as well) she turns up in Skye’s room with two bags of candy. 

Skye’s already waiting with another three. 

They stay up past midnight watching Buffy and discussing both the excellent and idiotic tendencies of men, super spies in particular. 

May drops in to steal a few peppermint patties, and rolls her eyes at Jemma’s guilty expression. 

"It’s about time," she says with smile. "I expected it last month after the thing with the spiders."

Fitz pounds on the wall to complain about the noise, so they invite him over. He’s still nursing a pretty solid crush on Skye, but Jemma settles herself between them and he holds himself together. 

They fall asleep around 3 am, during the musical episode. Jemma sends Fitz back to his room, and cleans up the mess while Skye snores. She’s tiptoeing back to her own when Grant spins her onto a couch and into his arms. 

"She’s ok?"

"She, uh, sort of saw it coming," Jemma smiles. "She’s great."

He kisses her neck. “And how are you?”

"Mmm, brilliant."


	9. The Jacket

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skye and Jemma are about the same size, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a response to a picture of Elizabeth Henstridge and Chloe Bennett wearing each other's costumes.

Grant can hear them giggling and chatting as he comes down the stairs. Ever since Simmons took her leap out into nothing, Skye’s been spending most of her free time in the lab. 

It’s good for her - he can see it in her attitude to training. She needs a friend. And they all need Jemma back at full strength. He hovers out of sight for a minute, wondering if he’s about to catch another impersonation or just interrupt some down time.

"No, but this is fabulous," Jemma says, out of sight. "God, I want one."

"If I didn’t love that one so much I’d give it to you," Skye answers. "Because it’s like it was made for you."

Not impressions, then. He’s safe.

Grant ducks into the lab, and directs his words to Skye’s leather jacket-clad back. She looks… different. Maybe it's something with her hair?

"You left your workout clothes in the dryer," he says mildly. "Thought I’d warn you before we park and the entire plane gets cleaned out."

She turns, and it’s not Skye at all, but Simmons who’s wrapped in short black leather. His mouth goes dry as she quirks an eyebrow at him.

"Oh, shit, thanks Ward!" Skye darts into his peripheral vision long enough for him to register that she’s wearing Jemma’s shirt and sweater, the high collar and long sleeves a bit more formal than he’s used to seeing on her. Then she’s out the door.

"Good catch," Simmons smiles. "That would have been her third sports bra destroyed this week."

She tucks a piece of her hair behind her ear and Grant can’t help but follow the line of the jacket as it rides up her side. He’s having visions of Jemma in a leather jacket and nothing else when suddenly she’s right in front of him, laying a hand on his sleeve. 

"Grant? Are you quite all right? You went a bit quiet there for a moment," she says. 

He clears his throat and mumbles some excuses at her before he turns tail and runs. 

******

Later that night, Jemma and Skye collapse onto Skye’s bunk and stare at the excessive number of bags they managed to bring back from their day in Paris. 

"The shoes were a really excellent choice," Jemma says. "You had to get the shoes."

"And that dress fits you like a glove," Skye nods to a blue bag in the corner. "It was a no-brainer."

Jemma nods, but looks worriedly at the larger brown bag sitting by the door. “I’m still not sure about the jacket.”

"How can you still not be sure about the jacket?" Skye asks in amazement. "Butter soft, amazing detailing, and it made you look like the total badass you are."

"Yes, but you said you thought the jacket would do the trick," Jemma sighs. "For a second in the lab, I thought… but he just ran away."

"Here’s what you have to understand about Ward," Skye grins, tucking a pillow under her head. "He’s going to run from this until he can’t because he’s a baby and doesn’t understand feelings. But you should have seen him when I ran into him upstairs. He tripped. TWICE."

Silence reigns for a minute.

"So I’m keeping the jacket?"

"You’re keeping the jacket. You’ll thank me, just watch."


	10. Adventures in the field

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 5-sentence prompts that resulted in Ward/Simmons silliness. (first sentence was the prompt)

 

"For the last time Fitz, there is nothing scientifically relevant about a tub full of chocolate mousse."

"But the monkey  _clearly_  indicated that this was the correct tub,” Fitz glared at Jemma with Snickers perched on his shoulder, picking through his hair. 

"And you!" Jemma whirled at Ward’s snicker. "Didn’t I tell you what would happen if we actually let him try the monkey in the field? How could you?"

"Keep your voice down, Simmons," Skye said reprovingly, "you’re scaring Snickers."

"And actually," Agent Coulson said from the door of the lab, "I was the one who approved the assignment of the monkey. Is there a problem?"

"Can we focus, please?" May sighed, walking into the room. "The monkey was right - I really hope none of you ate any of this chocolate, it’s just turned an entire dinner party into, well, zombies."

******

"You're actually really bad at this."

"Yes, thank you, well aware," Jemma muttered under her breath, stung, as they passed the next couple of well-dressed world leaders. Her hands were sweating, and her last attempt at cocktail conversation had drifted off into a scientific analysis of how you can tell if someone is lying before Ward had slid an arm around her waist and steered her away with excuses and a warning glance.

"Well, you had to be bad at something," he murmured with a smile, "otherwise it’s just not fair."

"I beg your pardon?" She blinked and looked up at him as they rounded the corner toward the secret lab hiding several captured civilians with powers.

But he was already dropping her hand, straightening into combat mode, and moving ahead of her to engage the first of seven guards.

Later, then. 

******

"That is really lifelike for a robotic baby."

Ward nudged at the thing with his toe, starting the awful crying recording all over again. 

"Ward!" Jemma scolded, scooping it up and rocking the little robot back and forth until it quieted, "These are made to respond to any stimuli realistically, it’s ingenious really. For high school children to learn about parenting and… and that is  _disgusting._ ”

She held the robot-baby out with one hand and stared in dismay at the spot where it had just deposited a green slime all over her shoulder. 

"Realistic or not," Ward grinned at her discomfort, even as he dug out a tail of his shirt to wipe at her sweater, "clearly this is a task for our resident engineer."

Their eyes met in mutual amusement, and with one voice they yelled down the hall, “FITZ!”

******

There were thousands of them, armed to the teeth, and they were about to come around the corner and see her.

"Quick, use the invisibility shield - ohhh, Jemma, dead again," Fitz sighed at her, happily mashing buttons while Skye fought in deadly seriousness. 

"It’s a very unrealistic game," she muttered, glaring at the legions of undead currently desecrating her corpse. "That was my final life, so… call me when you’ve both died for the last time and I can respawn."

She stomped downstairs in the general direction of the lab, but was blocked by Grant Ward practicing roundhouse kicks on the bag hanging in the training area. 

He went on for a few minutes than was strictly necessary, given that she was quite sure he’d noticed her when she came down the stairs in a sulk, but he was shirtless and glistening with exertion and she really could think of few better ways to improve her mood than to watch his muscles move in such perfect combinations.

Skye’s tap on her shoulder brought her back to the present. “You could have just mentioned that you needed a Ward break,” her friend grinned at her instant denial, sitting down next to her. “I’m dead and Fitz is determined. I brought snacks.”


	11. The rest of us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 5-sentence prompts without a Ward/Simmons focus. (first sentence was the prompt)

With glorious passion and supreme glee, Ward put his hands in the air and shouted, “I WIN!”

The rest of the team gave him a rather reluctant and sarcastic round of applause. They’d been playing Monopoly for seven hours now, and Skye had already left in tears, with Coulson cashing out to go after her and apologize for his double hotels on Park Place. 

Jemma, Fitz and May had made a pact during the last bathroom break to just end the damn thing as soon as possible. If Ward had noticed their sudden streak of terrible luck and worse decisions, it hadn’t stopped him from gleefully collecting rent and trading up for better properties. 

"Good job, Ward," Jemma tried for a little enthusiasm, "first official victory on the Bus. Now please give the game to Fitz so he can burn it and all its pieces to a tiny pile of ash."

******

"I know we've been over this before, but how exactly did you end up with a pet raccoon?"

"Well you see, we went in  _looking_  for a monkey,” Fitz started, before Coulson waved him to silence. 

"Just, find a way to keep it out of the supply closet, the galley, and the laundry, please." He nodded to May, holding a section of chewed wiring, Simmons with an entire tub of food missing lids and small chunks, and Ward, whose clean white laundry had apparently been the next visit after the raccoon had sample the grape jam. 

Skye and Fitz exchanged excited looks. 

"So - so you’re saying we can keep him?" Skye asked in her most patently false nonchalant tone. 

"I’m saying we’re 30,000 feet up in the air, on a 10 hour flight to our next case," Coulson said sternly to hide the twinkling in his eyes. "That animal -" "Wilbur, sir." "- Wilbur should not be made to pay for your lapse in professional judgement."

  ******  


Being a zombie wasn't as bad as she thought it would be.

Sure, the food was weird, all mashed up raw meat and brain matter from animals she didn’t want to think too hard about. And being restricted to the 10 x 10 room was a bit annoying, even if she could only move at an awkward shuffle. 

But she was still  _her_ , inside, still aware and alive, somehow. It was gross, and wrong, and weird. 

And amazing. 

Because she’d died, five days ago, on that table. They’d injected her with the virus, and when it had gone horribly wrong, Centipede had run as fast as they could in the opposite direction. 

Jemma said she’d been dead for seven hours before they realized what was happening. She’d come awake hungry, and grabbed at her friend’s arm before the screams had made her aware that something was off. 

Coulson said it was possible, life after death. Strange and hard, but possible. So she would give this a try. 

But this time Skye wanted her raw meat in a cup with a straw. At least then she could call it a smoothie.

******

Fitz stammered quietly for a moment at what was going on inside the room, then quickly walked back out and shut the door. 

"Well that was highly unlike him," Jemma said after a moment of silence, shrugging and turning back to the project at hand - she had a seam that wasn’t laying flat and she’d be damned if she was going to let it win. 

Skye laughed, picking up the bejeweled jean jacket that she’d been carefully glue-gunning when the lab doors slid open. “Doesn’t he know it’s almost Halloween?”

"Yes, and I  _told_ him we were going to dress up as the Saved by the Bell kids, but apparently he forgot,” Jemma pursed her lips thoughtfully, “Ward, I think you’d better let me adjust that seam again, it’s still not right.”

"Pants off again? That’s the third time, Simmons," Grant Ward raised an amused eyebrow and looked down at the acid-washed jeans, "and maybe Fitz just isn’t wild about his Screech outfit."


	12. Seeing things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ward's hallucinating, with hilarious and telling results.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt was the first sentence.

"Hey Simmons? Is there a reason there are tiny dancing mushrooms behind you?"

"Actually, yes," she answered crisply, biting back a very unprofessional smile. "The reason is that you were dosed with a very large amount of hallucinogenic drugs and we are trying to bring you safely down from the high."

Ward paid her only attention enough to move his mouth in time to her words, wiggling as though there was a rhythm to what she was saying. 

"But why  _mushrooms_?” he asked, freezing and sounding suddenly nervous. “Mushrooms are so sinister. Can’t they be strawberries instead?”

"Of course they can," she sighed, checking his vitals again for any spike in adrenaline. That had been a good precursor to the more violent hallucinations he'd been suffering off and on. 

At least he was only hallucinating monsters bent on attacking _both_ of them. So far, she was the only team member who had not melted into something frightening and wrong in his drugged haze. He still knew her  _name_. It was simply remarkable.

Skye had a different word for it - obvious, she’d said with a wink as Ward attempted to pop her like the toxic bubble of gum she apparently was to him. 

"Simmons likes strawberries," he murmured to himself dreamily, settling back into the pillows like a small child. She couldn’t stop herself from reaching out and smoothing his hair out of his face. Grant would hate to have messy hair in his face. She tapped his IV and increased the drip slightly, hoping that sleep would help him regain his sanity. 

As his head dropped to the side, he mumbled, “I’ll catch you, Simmons.” 

Then he started to snore.


	13. Who you gonna call?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma's got a problem. Two of them, in fact. She calls Grant for help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt was the first sentence.

"Exactly how much did you drink last night to dye your hair pink?"

Fitz squinted up at Ward, and shook his head, covering his face again with his arm. 

"Make the loud man go away, please."

"Fitz…"

Jemma ducked back into the hotel suite with breakfast sandwiches and a grocery bag filled with gatorade and what Ward judged to be over the counter hair dye. 

"Skye still asleep?" she asked in a stage whisper. Fitz threw a pink-stained pillow at her, missing by about six feet. 

"She hasn’t budged. I am considering checking to see if she’s breathing," Ward said. "What happened?"

"Oh god," Jemma smiled awkwardly, handing Fitz a blue gatorade and a hot Egg McMuffin. "It’s a  _bit_ of a long story.”

"You called me here." He watched her edge around him and sit on Skye’s bed, placing the red gatorade on her nightstand and dropping another Egg McMuffin right under the girl’s nose. 

"I did, that’s true," she hesitated, watching Fitz curl into a protective pink ball around his sandwich. "Maybe we can talk in, uh, in there?"

Ward raised an eyebrow. The bathroom? It was about 16 square feet and barely held one person, but he followed her in anyway. She sat on the edge of the tub. He put the toilet lid down and faced her. 

"You can’t get mad."

"Simmons, I can’t promise that."

"And you definitely can’t tell… well… anyone."

"What happened?"

"They were trying to cheer me up," she said with a wince. "It all started so innocently."

"Cheer you up? Why did you need cheering up?" He leaned in, checking her for any signs of physical trauma, but she appeared unharmed. 

"So, five years ago today, I graduated with my first doctorate. And I was head over heels in love with this boy, and had accepted a job at a boring biotech firm doing cell research on someone else’s project just so we could live together in London and…"

Ward didn’t like where this was going.

"…I accidentally dyed my hair pink."

"What?"

"Well, see, I’d been going a nice auburn in those days, and Freddie liked that, so for graduation I just wanted it to be perfect, you know? I always mixed my own dyes, because it’s just chemistry, and if I can’t handle that I don’t deserve to own a bunsen burner, quite frankly."

"Simmons."

"Right. Anyway. I forgot one of the sulfates, and almost burned all my hair off, but instead it was pink. Completely, shocking, candyfloss pink. Freddie thought I was mocking him, and was really a giant ass about it, and we broke up while I was in my graduation gown, and Fitz threw his diploma and actually gave him a scar above his left eye."

She smiled for a minute, and pointed to the spot on his forehead that she meant. The touch was electric, like it was every time their skin brushed, and she pulled back immediately. 

"Anyway, that was the last time I ever considered a life with a house and a yard and kids and my parents nearby… and sometimes I get a bit maudlin when today rolls around, and they just wanted to cheer me up, and… I didn’t know Skye had started him on tequila when I bought the rum."

Ward steadied himself, then let his hand close over hers and squeeze. The spark was there, humming beneath the skin, but he wanted to convey that he was listening. That he… cared. 

They looked at each other for a moment and then let their hands drop back to their sides. 

"So you called me?"

"When I realized just how hungover the two of them would be, yes."

"And the hair dye?"

"Well, Fitz is like my brother, but you have to be mostly naked for this and I thought a super spy could likely handle a bit of hair dye."

He grimaced. 

"He’ll be devastated if he realizes what he’s done in front of Skye," she said. "Please?"

Well that settled that. He couldn’t say no to her.

That was going to become a problem.

"Did you get me one of those sandwiches, at least?"

"I got you two," she grinned. 

Maybe not such a problem. 


	14. No apology necessary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They’ve kissed once or twice, always undercover, in situations that may or may not have demanded it. Soft, apologetic meetings of the lips that let them blend into the background. Skye teases her after each one, but Ward has never brought them up.
> 
> Maybe she dreams about those kisses now and then. 
> 
> This one is better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Do Not Disturb

She’s halfway down the hotel hallway when Ward grabs her by the arm and swings her into the wall. His tall frame blocks her view, so she is reduced to peering over his shoulder in an attempt to see whose footsteps have come up so quickly behind them. 

"Jemma." His voice is whisper-soft, full of warning. Then his mouth lands on her collarbone, and her eyes flutter shut, and by the time he’s kissed his way up to her ear she’s melting against him. "We’re surrounded. I need you to trust me."

That breaks the mood rather quickly, and she forces her eyes open, a question on her lips. He doesn’t let her ask, but covers her mouth with his own. They’ve kissed once or twice, always undercover, in situations that may or may not have demanded it. Soft, apologetic meetings of the lips that let them blend into the background. Skye teases her after each one, but Ward has never brought them up.

_Maybe_  she dreams about those kisses now and then. 

This one is better. 

His mouth is firm, eager, and hot on hers. She can feel him smile when she leans into it, answering heat with heat. His hand slides down to cup her bum and then he lifts her, bringing her legs up around his waist. She knows her skirt is riding up, somewhere in the back of her mind she worries that she’s giving the rest of the team a show.

But he’s asked her to trust him. 

When his hands find the secret pocket in her dress where she’s stashed the master hotel key Fitz made them, he lets it linger. He moves his mouth back to her neck and she can’t quite hold in the gasp of approval. 

Then he spins them, makes a show of stumbling toward the empty room that was their original target. When her back slams against the door, he cushions the blow with his hands, laughing against her skin in apology as he pretends to fumble with the key. Jemma feels electric, as if she could solve all the unanswered questions in the universe if he just keeps kissing her. 

When she hears the beep of the card being accepted, she allows herself one quick look at the hallway. A heavyset man in all black is on a phone, staring directly at them. She winks, and waves.

"Don’t forget the do not disturb." Her voice surprises her with its lower pitch, but it’s still loud enough for the guard to hear, and he rolls his eyes and turns away. Grant nips at her shoulder and complies.

The door swings shut as he carries them in toward the bed. 

He drops her onto the covers and then steps back, three big strides away from her and her racing heart and shallow breathing. 

"Do I need to apologize?" 

She sits up, hands fisting nervously in the comforter. “You never have before.”  _Goodness_  her heart rate is elevated. 

He takes one step back in her direction. “Should I have?”

"You were protecting us," she demurs, avoiding the real question.

His smile is a flash of white. “Not really. I could have just killed them.”

Oh.

OH.

"So you don’t want to…" she almost says stop, but catches her wayward tongue in time. "…to apologize?"

Another step. He’s almost within arm’s reach. “No. But I will. If I need to.”

His brown eyes are serious, and his hands are tense at his sides. She slides off the bed to stand in front of him, and smooths her skirt back down over her legs. It feels like a reckoning. A crossroads.

"I wish you wouldn’t," she says. Then she stretches up on her toes and kisses him, hard. 

*

They tell Fitz in the debrief that there was some kind of mysterious electrical interference that prevented them from setting up the equipment for an hour.

Skye eyes Jemma’s shirt and leans over to whisper, “You missed a button.”


	15. Oops, I did it again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I told you to go on ahead."
> 
> "Simmons," he shook his head, watching her careful work as she gave his leg two stitches. "That’s not what I do."
> 
> "No, I am very familiar with what you do," she snapped. "Run into rooms full of armed guards despite me telling you that I was well hidden and could remain so, get shot three times and proceed through the rest of the mission, bleeding all over the car on the way home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Jemma finds out that Grant's ticklish.

"Tell me again just how you managed to get shot three times?" Jemma glared, a stack of gauze and fresh suture supplies on the tray she set down next to him. 

"First of all," Grant said, "they’re grazes. Barely bleeding. You don’t have to… oof." He sucked in a breath as she deliberately started cleaning his shoulder more vigorously than usual. 

"Of course I must," she said primly. But when her eyes lifted to his, they were more concerned than irritated. "Since you remain the only member of the team who has not yet learned to get out of the way when someone is shooting at you. Lift." 

She poked at his side, needing access to his leg. The fabric around the thigh wound had to be cut away, and she muttered something about arteries and carelessness that made him smile. 

"Well next time I’ll make sure to duck when running in to save you."

She paused, and bit her lip. 

"I had a plan," she said. "I told you to go on ahead."

"Simmons," he shook his head, watching her careful work as she gave his leg two stitches. "That’s not what I do."

"No, I am very familiar with what you do," she snapped. "Run into rooms full of armed guards despite me telling you that I was well hidden and could remain so, get shot three times and proceed through the rest of the mission, bleeding all over the car on the way home."

She tied off the thread and indicated that he could put his leg back down. That only left the head wound. He didn’t like that worry in her eyes.

"It’s not as bad as it looks," he told her, laying a hand over her gloved one. "Never even got blood in my eyes."

"If only we judged all wounds based on how much they inconvenience you. But you’re too tall," she said. "I can’t clean that properly from this angle."

He slid off the table and let her push him down onto the work stool, a few inches lower. It brought them to about even height, and for a moment her hand lingered on his uninjured shoulder and his eyes held hers and he thought, maybe, of saying some of those things he’d always kept to himself.

Then she pulled away, moving behind him to wash the blood out of his hair with a wet cloth. He turned, trying to see what she was thinking, but her hands caught his ears and directed him back forward. 

He jumped. He couldn’t help it.  _Shit._

"What was all that?" Her hands were still on his head. "Do please tell me that Agent Grant Ward just flinched for the very first time because his ears are ticklish."

It had taken him hours and the crazy x-ray glasses to buy Skye’s silence. He didn’t have anything to offer Jemma.

She teased at his ears again and this time he was able to mostly control the reaction. Mostly. 

Her laugh was triumphant. “You are ticklish. This is amazing. Does anyone else know? Does SHIELD know? How do you handle that in the field? The tickling response is practically reflex, you’ll never be able to control it completely - watch!”

Grant reached behind and grabbed her hands before she could test him again, swinging her around to stand in front of him. 

"Easy, Simmons," he warned. "Once tickling is deliberate, retaliation is fair game."

The flush in her cheeks was telling. It wouldn’t take him long to find her weak spot. In fact he thought he would really enjoy the search…

"Grant Ward," she said sternly. "You are still bleeding from the head."

"I can do that and tickle you," he assured her. "Part of being a specialist. Multitasking."

"Multitask by turning around, please."

He did as he was told, and let her finish her work. But when she’d stripped off the latex gloves and washed his blood off her arms, he came up behind her. “Just remember,” he whispered. “I fight fire with fire.”

She looked up at him, and something ignited in her eyes. Then she very slowly and deliberately reached up and tickled his left ear. 


	16. Seeing stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He crossed his arms over his chest and lounged in the doorway. He was a very large person, she thought distractedly, all muscle and hard planes and nice brown eyes. 
> 
> "So let’s hear it. What brings you to my bunk, Simmons?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt was the first sentence.

She sliced her thumb on the edge of metal drawer and swore, then clapped a hand quickly over her mouth, eyes wide and round, praying she remained undetected.

_Why_ had she let Fitz and Skye talk her into this? Now she was bleeding and there was no way that she was going to go undetected. 

_Pull yourself together, Jemma. You planned for this._

She edged closer to her target and bit her lip in concentration. If she could just…

The light clicked on behind her and she spun into an unbalanced defensive position, hiding her right hand behind her back. 

"They sent _you_?" Ward looked like he was about to laugh. "Did you dissect one of Fitz’s sandwiches again?"

"I don’t know what you’re talking about, and that was purely for calibration purposes," she said. "The sandwich was completely edible afterward."

He crossed his arms over his chest and lounged in the doorway. He was a very large person, she thought distractedly, all muscle and hard planes and nice brown eyes. 

"So let’s hear it. What brings you to my bunk, Simmons?"

"Oh, is this  _your_ bunk?” She widened her eyes as practiced, and looked around in surprise, gesturing a bit wildly. “I wondered why Skye’s deodorant wasn’t in the drawer like she said…”

But she stopped talking because his eyes had narrowed and he’d stepped forward to grab her right hand from its airborne gesticulating. 

"You’re bleeding."

"Am I?" Dammit, she sounded breathy and not at all believable and she was going to get stuck with lab cleanup for a month.

He turned her hand over gently, swiping a tissue from his desk to sop up the blood oozing from her thumb. 

"That drawer is locked for a reason, Simmons."

She winced, and it wasn’t from the cut on her thumb. “I know.”

"Skye’s going to get to train on the throwing stars when she’s good enough not to hurt someone."

He pulled the tissue away and dug in another drawer for a bandaid, holding her hand the entire time. 

"I did try to tell her that. But the general consensus was, I believe, that you are a joyless robot and throwing stars are cool."

Ward shook his head, and carefully wrapped the little plastic bandage around the pad of her thumb. Then he dropped her hand and looked up at her face. 

"I’m not, you know." 

"Sorry?"

"I am going to let you walk out of here with the very sharp throwing star you're hiding in your pocket and you’ll have about 45 minutes before I come and take it back again. If anyone else gets hurt, you’re all running laps."

She pressed her lips together in embarrassment at being so see-through, but nodded anyway. She wasn’t above taking the out he was handing her. Jemma started for the door, pausing when he said her name. 

"Simmons?" She could hear him pulling his shirt off and willed herself not to turn around. "Next time they back you into a corner, just ask me."


	17. Job descriptions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before Skye wakes up, the other agents play a waiting game.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt was the first sentence.

Agents Ward and Simmons were watching tv when Jemma asked, "What do you want to do?"

The gentle hum of the laugh track and the happy people on TV weren’t distracting her. And she could tell he wasn’t paying attention either. He didn’t even hear her question.

"Agent Ward," she tried again, looking away from the tv to study the hard planes of his face, "what do you think we should do?"

He turned then, and she saw him work to unclench the fist his right hand had formed over the last half-hour of “relaxation.” 

"As long as we’re grounded, and Coulson won’t tell us why," he shrugged, and there was anger and frustration in the movement. "There isn’t much we can do."

They turned back to the television. Jemma wondered, again, what was taking Fitz so long with the popcorn. May had disappeared, citing a lead she couldn’t share, while they’d settled in at the hotel a few blocks from the SHIELD medical center where Skye was being treated. 

Coulson was with her, the only one with clearance to get through the door. Jemma had argued herself hoarse, only to have Fitz and a furious Ward gently guide her back to the hotel. They’d been sitting on this couch ever since.

"I just," she started, then trailed off, uncertain as to whether talking was helping either of them. He ran a hand over his face, but his eyes were the same warm brown that usually met hers, and so she obeyed his nod to continue. "I can’t help feeling that, if I only had actual emergency medicine  _training_ , Agent Coulson might not be so disappointed in me, and maybe Skye…”

She bit her lip and stared at the television screen blindly, trying to hold back the stricken tears she’d already cried too many times. 

"It’s not you," Ward said sharply. "Don’t think that. You were meant to be part of the research team, this was not in your job description."

Jemma sniffed and nodded, pretending to believe him. If not in her job description, then whose? Certainly not the two specialists. Fitz was useless around blood. It had been her responsibility, and she should have been better prepared. 

"Simmons." He reached toward her face, his hand falling back just before it would have brushed her cheek. She turned in surprise and found his face a picture of frustration. "She wouldn’t be alive if you hadn’t be such a fast thinker. Whatever secrets Coulson’s keeping now, he knows that. No one expects you to know everything, except yourself."

The onscreen couple were laughing at a terrible joke. His hand had fallen to his thigh, and was clenched into a tight fist again. Jemma reached out and covered it with her own, feeling him relax beneath her touch. 

"Well, someone has to," she said, a weak attempt at humor. "And lord knows we don’t want to leave that job to Fitz."

"What’s that?" Her best friend came through the door, several bags of popcorn in hand. "Another job for me?"

Jemma squeezed Ward’s hand and let go, standing up to help. Ward watched her move across the room but made no effort to join them. Fitz gave her a sharp look when she reached him, as he could see she was on the verge of tears again, but she shook her head and smiled determinedly. 

"Yes, actually," she said. "We need to figure out who we know in that hospital. Coulson can’t be the only one getting updates."


	18. No guns required

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Fakeout makeout" for a kiss meme. Fitz / Skye, post-Season 1 au.

"Yes, but what you’re not understanding is that the orbital velocity is never going to be high enough to sustain—" Fitz froze mid-whisper, pulling Skye back against him in the hallway packed with well-dressed donors.

She spun in irritation, fighting the breathlessness that usually accompanied standing too close to the engineer lately. But he wasn’t paying any attention to her.

"Shit, I know him. He  _knows_  me. Could recognize me anywhere.” His eyes were fixed on someone behind her, and she hoped that meant he missed the way she shivered when his mouth touched her ear. “We’re going to have to shoot him.”

"What?" Skye rolled her eyes and threw a casual glance over her shoulder at the tall black man currently whispering into his date’s ear. His nametag had the UN logo on it and she turned back to Fitz with a glare. "We are not shooting a UN representative."

"He’s coming this way, I really don’t see that we have any choice."

She grabbed his hand as he went for the undetectable ICER stowed in his pocket. “Fitz. We are not. shooting. anyone. Just follow my lead.”

"Skye, I don’t feel like you’re appreciating the urgency of this matter. He knows I was with SHIELD and if we are discovered— mmf." 

He drew in a surprised breath as she covered his lips with her own. She nudged at his hips and he angled them so that she could watch his old friend’s approach over his shoulder. 

Then he caught up to her, and his mouth started moving against hers, and his strong hands pulled her flush against his body and she let her eyes drift shut in pure pleasure. 

They pulled apart for a moment, eyeing each other carefully, and she reached up to wipe some of her pink lipstick off his face. The UN threat was all the way across the room, and their path to the restricted hallway was clear. 

"See, no shooting." His answering half-smile did funny things to her stomach. "Let’s wrap this mission up. After you?"

"Oh no." He let that sly smile spread across the rest of his face. "I’m quite content to follow your lead tonight."


	19. First kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You know what we should do?" Skye’s calm voice echoed through the section of tunnel they had retreated to after the cave-in. They were sitting on the damp concrete, their LED lantern in the center of the little circle. "While we wait for Coulson and May to get us out? Truth or dare."

"You know what we should do?" Skye’s calm voice echoed through the section of tunnel they had retreated to after the cave-in. They were sitting on the damp concrete, their LED lantern in the center of the little circle. "While we wait for Coulson and May to get us out? Truth or dare."

Jemma groaned. “Skye, Agent Ward is bleeding from the head, I hardly think now is the time for games.”

"Oh come on," her friend wheedled. "You can do two things at once. He’s only bleeding a little bit, right big guy?"

Grant looked between his protogee and his… well, Jemma wasn’t his anything. But she was glaring at him sternly. He shrugged. 

"As long as you don’t make me headbutt anything, I’m fine." It might be a good idea to keep them distracted while they waited for signs of life from above.

Jemma was less than pleased. “I must strongly advise against-“

"Relax, Jemma," Fitz muttered, redirecting her ire. "They probably give all specialists some super serum to help them regenerate blood faster anyway."

She sputtered irritably, digging through her field kit for antiseptic and clean bandages. “I think as one of SHIELD’s ranking biochemists, I would know if that were the case.”

"So!" Skye cut in. "It’s settled. We play. I’ll go first. Fitz, truth or dare?"

He eyed her suspiciously for a minute. “Truth.”

"Baby. Fine. The last time you made a mistake on a project?"

Grant was watching their faces, noticing a little flare of defiance in Fitz’s eyes when Jemma grabbed his chin and turned him toward her.

"I never make mistakes."

"Fitz." Jemma’s laughter was hardly contained, and Grant had to catch his breath at seeing her smile so close up. "You swapped the couplings on the frequency adapter  _last week_. And proceeded to scream like a child when it exploded.”

"If you can’t be honest, you’ll be stuck with dares," Skye warned Fitz. "Since you’re a terrible sport we’ll start again. Ward, truth or dare?"

He met Jemma’s eyes as she cleaned the cut on his forehead, and read a challenge there. “Dare.” 

Fitz leaned over and whispered in Skye’s ear. 

"Oooh, good one. Find Jemma’s one ticklish spot."

The biochemist stopped her work and turned to her friends, betrayal on her face. “Why on earth would he…?”

"Easy," Grant said, never taking his eyes off of her face. He could feel all three sets of eyes turn to him. "Her feet." 

Jemma flushed, then nodded shortly. Grant looked at Skye, who had a shit-eating grin on her face. “Done. Next?”

"Wasn’t he supposed to actually —"

"The phrasing of that question only required him to identify the area, not touch it," Jemma said sharply, her clipped tone making Grant smile a little wider. 

"Skye," Grant said calmly. "Truth or dare?"

"Dare. Bring it, robo-cop."

"Teach Fitz to disarm someone pointing a gun at him."

The two of them groaned, since that was a skill Fitz had never quite mastered in all of his lessons. Grant turned back to Jemma. 

"There, that should buy you some time to finish repairing my face."

She shook her head. “You shouldn’t have agreed in the first place.”

Fitz tripped and fell into Skye, who tumbled to the floor with him on top of her. She was still holding the ICER.

"Doesn’t count," Grant called out. He lowered his voice to answer Jemma as they disentangled themselves. "Nothing wrong with a little distraction."

She quirked an eyebrow at him, and he found himself staring at the way her lips pursed in a mixture of amusement and disapproval. If it were just the two of them stuck down here… well, he wouldn’t be playing any games. That much he knew.

She tore her eyes from his and dabbed at a cut on his chin. Her next question was a little breathless. “My feet? How could you possibly know that?”

He had heard her complaining to Skye about foot rubs during pedicures last week, but he hadn’t meant to listen in. Something about her voice just cut through the rest of the background noise on the Bus. 

"Lucky guess."

She shook her head. “Liar.”

"Ah HA!" Fitz pranced over, waving the ICER triumphantly. "And you thought I could never do it."

"Don’t get too excited, or next time I’ll make you try and disarm me." Grant bit back a laugh when the engineer backpedaled over to Skye with a huff. 

"My turn, anyway," he grumbled. "Jemma, truth or dare?"

"I really don’t have time for this nonsense," she started, but Grant saw her soften at the disappointment on Skye’s face. "Truth, then."

"Oh, come on, Jemma," Fitz argued. "I know everything there is to know about you, go with the fun option."

"The  _fun_  option?” Her eyebrows lowered dangerously, and Grant put a hand on her shoulder to interrupt what was sure to be a fascinating set-down. 

"Better to let them have their fun," he said with a wink. "Get it out of their systems."

She opened and closed her mouth a few times, then turned back to Fitz and Skye. “Dare. Get this over with if you please.”

“ _kissward_.” Fitz said the two words so fast Grant almost missed them entirely. But the stricken look on Jemma’s face told him that she’d understood her Scottish friend perfectly.

She covered it quickly, an over-sweet smile on her lips as she turned back to him. 

Skye whispered something to Fitz, who hurried to add, “On the lips!” 

Grant grinned. Not the most painful dare he could think of. 

"Oh my god, it’s like working with 12-year-olds," Jemma muttered, before leaning in to brush his lips with her own. Grant resolutely resisted the urge to grab her by the shoulders and press her up against the wall, to kiss her like he wanted to and make sure she understood how badly he did. Instead he caught her eyes as she pulled away, and watched as she blushed.

The game petered out soon after, because May came rappelling down an exhaust pipe with a ladder and a plan. They sent Fitz up first. Then May came back for Skye. 

Once the two women had disappeared up the rope ladder, Jemma turned to Grant. 

"Let’s try that again?"

"Hell yes."

This kiss was fire and want and she stretched up on her toes and he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her hard against him. When they broke apart for air, she was smiling. 

"Truth or dare?"

He considered. “What do you want me to pick?”

"It works either way."

He nuzzled into her neck and felt her sigh. “Truth.”

"You have not told anyone we’re sleeping together?"

"Not a soul." He nipped at the top of her shoulder. "You?"

"They definitely think that was our first kiss."


	20. Curiosity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ranking the bus on kiss ability, Skye needs Fitz to cooperate. For comparison purposes.

"You’re telling me you’ve never thought about it?" Jemma sounded surprised. 

Skye looked between the two scientists in confusion, and shook her head. “I will admit to a great many things, but not imaginary kiss rankings for my own team.”

They were sitting around the pool, waiting on Coulson and Tripp to get back from a food run. May was napping. 

"Yeah, but you’ve got one up on the rest of us, right?" Fitz said with a bitter little smile. Jemma whacked him on the arm. 

Skye scowled. She’d known it would be awkward when she explained to them just how close she’d let Ward get to her before she’d figured him out, but lying would have felt worse. 

"Yeah, fine, I know how the resident lying scumbag of a HYDRA plant kisses. Clearly I win."

Fitz opened his mouth to say something, but Jemma very obviously dug her elbow into his thigh. 

"So now," her friend smiled reassuringly, "you just rate everyone else against that. Much easier when you have a point of comparison."

"What, like May and, and  _Coulson?_ " 

Fitz shook Jemma off and stood, feeding a dollar into the vending machine. “I’ve always assumed Coulson would beat out May, myself.”

"Fitz!" Skye tried not to laugh at his deadpan tone. 

"Mmm, no I must politely disagree. May has so much controlled power, I’m sure it would translate in her kissing," Jemma said thoughtfully. 

"This is so very, very weird." Skye shook her head. "I’m going to take a shower. Don’t you dare think about this for another minute."

Jemma laughed, and lay back along the pool chair in the feeble sunlight. “Spoilsport.”

She was halfway up the stairs when she heard someone following her. Fitz shrugged. “Needed my book if we’re all done being social.”

They walked side by side and she dug the key out of her jeans pocket. 

"So you’ve never been curious about anyone? Except Ward, of course."

"Fitz…"

"I’m just wondering. That’s all. Sorry, I’ll just… here it is. I’ll go."

He picked up his second-hand copy of 2001: A Space Odyssey and turned for the hotel room door. 

"Sure I’ve wondered," she blurted out.

"Oh?" He stopped and looked over his shoulder, eyebrows raised inquiringly. "Was it May? I bet it was May."

She never thought she’d be admitting to  _this_. But maybe it would help, chase away the ghost of Ward that seemed to hang over her shoulder.

 ”No, idiot. I wondered about you.”

His face went from red to white to red again in about two seconds. Then he found his breath and laughed. “No, seriously, Skye.”

"I am serious. Hot accent, nice hands, not too hard on the eyes. Of course I wondered."

She could see the tips of his ears were still glowing with embarrassment. But his eyes weren’t embarrassed at all. His eyes were  _interested._

"The Scottish accent  _is_ traditionally one that Americans find particularly attractive,” he said, taking a step back into the room. 

"So own up," she grinned. "Who was yours? I know it was Jemma, at least once."

He rolled his eyes and covered the rest of the space between them. “Don’t tease, Skye. You know damn well who.”

She grinned, and wrapped her arms around his neck and tugged him down to her. His lips were firm and her fingers slid right into his short curly hair. He kissed with less finesse than Ward, but she didn’t mind. His hands were on her shoulders and he pulled back for a moment, considering the angle, then leaned back in and tugged her against him. 

Oh. That was new.

They broke apart when someone walked past the still-open door, both breathing heavily. 

"Consider the cat killed," she muttered. He squinted at her in confusion. "Curiosity, you know."

He shook his head, grabbed his book and left. 

She slipped him a note at dinner with her rankings. Ward was at the bottom. Fitz was at the top. His ears stayed red all night. 


	21. Grieving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skye finds her way through the betrayal.

It hits Skye a week later.

They’ve spent the last seven days overseeing the decommissioning of Garrett’s private army, trying to reconnect the men and women with their their reasons for piecing their lives back together. It’s long hours, and the hotel bed barely makes an impression as she falls onto it night after night. Jemma’s sharing her room, and has apologized multiple mornings for her nightmares.

Skye reassures her every time by saying that she’s never woken up. She’s not sure how to feel about that. Not even her friend’s pain can keep Skye from the six hours of oblivion she so badly needs.

Coulson’s a man with a mission, his new purpose giving him a vim that she envies. Jemma’s neck deep in managing the science side of the cleanup. May and Triplett both seem so even, so in control.

Fitz is still in a medically induced coma, but Jemma’s reports are hopeful, even if her eyes are haunted. 

So it never occurs to Skye that she needs to grieve. 

It’s not until her third 5 am session that she lands a punch on the bag —  _just the way Ward taught her_  — and bursts into tears.

She bites them back, wiping furiously and hoping that May hasn’t noticed. 

"He meant something to you," her new mentor says calmly from behind her. May notices everything. "It’s ok to miss that."

Skye shakes her head once, but the breath she draws to deny the validity of any emotion except disgust, pity, or anger catches in her throat. 

"Skye." She’s only heard May use that gentle tone on Coulson, and she can count the times on one hand. "It’s  _okay_.”

And then the floodgates open. She winds up curled with her back to the standing bag, her head tucked onto her knees and her tears leaving splotches on her lavender training gear.

She needs black, like May and Triplett. Why didn’t Ward ever tell her to get black? Why does that make it all hurt more?

May waits her out. When the sobs turn into hiccups, she hands her a bottle of water and a towel. “Talk.”

"I hate this." Skye cracks the bottle open and takes two swallows. "I want to just hate _him_. But I turn the corner in this damn plane and expect him to be there, and I throw a punch and look for his approval and he hurt Fitz and you and Jemma and he’s a killer and a Nazi and I don’t  _want_  to remember how much he meant to me.”

"You trusted him."

"Of course I did!" She lets her head fall back against the back with a low thump. "God, more than anyone, I trusted him. And he  _used that_  to hurt the team.”

"And you."

"Yeah, but Fitz and Coulson and…"

May shakes her head and Skye falls quiet. “No one doubts that you’re angry about what he’s done to the team. But he hurt  _you_ , Skye.”

She sniffs and squeezes her eyes shut. “I kissed him, you know. Before I knew.”

"I know." May’s face is blank as always, but she walks over and rests a hand on her shoulder. "Grieve for what that could have been, and then put it away. I’ll see you at breakfast."

The specialist barely makes a sound as she leaves the gym. No one else is up at this hour. Skye sets a timer on her tablet.

Forty-five minutes to wallow.

That’s all she’s giving Grant Ward. Then she’s going to get up and buy some black sports bras. 


	22. Delirious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fitz struggles to tell friend from foe. (Written post-S1 but before S2, speculative.)

He knows something’s wrong.

Leo Fitz just doesn’t know what.

His medical team, led by the doctor who’d injected Fury himself with the drug to simulate death well enough to fool Nastasha Romanoff and Steve Rogers, does their best to keep his weakened defenses shored up and keep notes of his mutterings while in the grip of delirium. 

It changes every time, but the main themes are the same: Grant Ward, Jemma Simmons, and death.

Sometimes he wakes with violence, bursting out of his unconscious state wild and angry, tearing at his IVs and grabbing anything sharp he can reach to defend himself. 

Those are the times he makes the most sense. Everyone is HYDRA, everyone is part of it, like Ward, and they’re hiding her, or hurting her, or have already taken her forever. He’s too weak to do much damage, but they often have to repair his drip lines once the sedative takes effect.

Sometimes it grows from a murmur of a name, a whimper of fear and powerlessness. He doesn’t threaten the team when he wakes like that, but widens those frightened eyes and begs for their lives, pleads with them for mercy, for justice, or at least to make it quick.

Sometimes he doesn’t wake at all, just cries and screams and gurgles. He thrashes during those fits, and the restraints cut into his pale wrists and ankles so much that they have to double wrap them. 

He’s only turned to engineering twice. The first time the nurse on duty comes in to find him halfway through turning his monitor into a two-way shortwave radio to call for help. He calmly listens to her explain that Jemma Simmons is safe with Agent Coulson and the team and that he is in the hospital, safe as well. Then he throws the monitor at her head.

The second time, he programs his call box to beep at a constant rate of four tones per minute. When the doctor asked why, he explains carefully that his heartrate changes too often, and he needs some way to know when he is awake and when he’s dreaming. The steady beep gives him something to focus on. 

The doctor suggests that he’ll hear the beeping in his dreams, that some other test might work better.

There’s no beeping in their underwater grave, Fitz says logically. Then he convulses into a seizure and spends the rest of the day sedated.

They make another note in his file, and send the report in triplicate to Fury, Coulson and Agent Simmons. 

******

_He’s learning their habits. Violence gets him sedated fastest. Crying gets him extra Jello. He remembers flashes — a suffocating rush of water, a crushing sense of betrayal and failure, fear and pain — but has no idea how he got here._

_They use her name like they know her, and sometimes he wakes sure that she has just been here. If he could only fight the sedative._

_These HYDRA doctors are good, but he’ll find a way out. One of these days._

_Jemma needs him, after all._


	23. Insecure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma has recently developed a heights issue. Trip thinks it might have something to do with trust.

The wind whistles to the tune of Vader’s march as Jemma clings to the exposed bricks on the fourth floor of the old apartment building. Her toes are wedged precariously on the two-inch window ledge, and her body is pressed flat against the cold brick. 

The thugs inside have finished their sweep of the room, and Jemma can hear them discussing something in rapid-fire Russian before footsteps come back to the barely open window.

Her eyes meet Tripp’s across three feet of single-pane glass. He shakes his head reassuringly, and she digs into the wall with her shaking hands.

Whoever has come to look outside stands there for a moment before his partner calls him back. He answers sharply, and slams the window shut as he goes. 

"Shit." Tripp’s not the worrying type, so his soft exclamation has her squeezing her eyes shut. She can hear him shuffling around, and after a moment he says, "It’s clear. But they locked the window."

"I suppose this isn’t the best of times to mention that I’ve recently developed a slight…  _thing_  with heights?”

"Really?" Tripp looks way too comfortable on his side of the window, even if his handsome face is scrunched in thought. Honestly, it’s like he doesn’t realize the amount of damage that can be done to internal organs after a fall of forty feet onto pavement. "I didn’t have you pegged as the nervous type. Here, take my hand."

He steps lightly across the yawning forty-foot drop to the next window over, which has a wider ledge for more secure footing, then reaches back for her. Her progress to the left side of the window is slow, and she appreciates that he doesn’t force her to take the same leap right away.

"I’ve been having shit luck with planes recently." The words tumble out as she tries to reason through her very lousy options. She can stay where she is and hope he can come back and get her. Or she can follow him as he finds a way out or down. "Well, planes and Grant Ward. It’s confusing. Did you know? The first time, he caught me."

His hand tightens around hers, and she tears her gaze away from the dizzying drop to his serious face. He nods a quick yes. Of course he’s heard the story.

"And the second time, he tossed you out himself. No wonder you have a trust issue."

"Heights. I have a heights issue." She corrects him automatically. Because surely that’s what this is. It’s that same swooping fear that she’d felt in the forest, the one that died down when Grant Ward promised to catch her if she fell. 

"Ok, heights issue it is." His smile is quick and sad. ”But listen. Trust me, Jemma Simmons. I got you.”

It’s less poetic, maybe, than the words Ward used to win her over. But she believes him.

And when she steps out into nothing, it’s his strength that keeps her moving until she’s on that ledge, secure beside him. 


	24. Just ask

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma finds those x-ray glasses tucked in one of Skye's drawers while she's caring for her friend. Ward is amused.

She finds them while Skye is recovering from the gunshot wounds. 

Jemma is rifling through a drawer, trying to find a few extra sets of clothes so her friend can feel a bit more human and less like a science experiment when her hand brushes something that is not a pair of socks. 

She recognizes them instantly. “Oh my  _god_ , you sneaky little…” That is SHIELD property and such a total violation of team privacy and  _has she used them and on who?_

"Jemma?" Ward pops his head into the bunk and she hurries to hide the glasses under the pile of shirts she’s holding. "Did you need anything? I thought I heard a noise."

He looks tired, alert, concerned. He also looks like his jaw was carved as an example of perfect proportions and she has seen him enough times without his shirt to know that applies to more than just his face.

Although those glasses might confirm a few more suspicions she has about his proportions… NO. Oh, she is going to kill Skye. 

"Oh, no. Not at all. I’m just fine," she says, and relief blooms across his face, softening the hard edges. They’re all running on empty these days. "Just about to head back."

"Here," he reaches out both hands for the small stack of clothing. "I can help."

He’s a specialist and moves far faster than she reacts to block his kind offer. The glasses clatter to the bunk floor. They both freeze.

"Are those?"

"Unfortunately."

"Do we need to talk about this, Jemma?" One weary eyebrow quirks up and her face heats in response. 

"No we do not, thank you Ward. I’m sure it’s none of your concern, but I was just moving those back to the lab and they, they fell out of my pocket."

"Ah." He’s almost smiling, his entire face a picture of amused disbelief. She collects the glasses with as much dignity as she can, sliding them into her pocket without meeting his eyes. 

They start down the corridor with no further comment, and for a little while Jemma thinks she’s escaped any further embarrassment. 

Ward stops outside the door to Skye’s med pod and looks down at her.

"You know they don’t show the interesting bits, right?"

"I - Agent Ward, I designed the damned things of course I know what they show."

She tips up her chin in indignation and reaches for the handle. Ward lets her wrap her hand around it before he covers it with his own. He leans down and murmurs into her ear.

"What I’m saying is, if you’re interested… just say so."

They pause like that, for a breath or two, his mouth brushing the shell of her ear and her heart thumping as hard as it did before she stepped off the cargo deck at 30,000 feet. Then he’s through the door, teasing Skye into smiling and dumping the clothes on her bed. 

Jemma closes a hand around the glasses and watches him deadpan a training order at the still-weak hacker. The hard lines are back, but his eyes give away the lie. They’re bright and laughing when he turns to her.

"What do you say, Jemma?"

"Yes." It’s a breath more than an word, but he hears it. She locks eyes with his just long enough for him to understand which question she was answering.

Then Skye throws a pillow at her in punishment for suggesting she use this time to read old SHIELD protocol manuals. 


	25. Lie to me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pre-season 2. Jemma sees Grant Ward for the first time since he sent her hurtling out of a plane.

"Don’t listen to them. Don’t you EVER listen to them," Jemma called after the scared junior communications officer being led away from the huddled group. 

Susan, she’d said her name was. She had a fiance at home, a kindergarten teacher who’d cried when she’d told him she was going to rejoin SHIELD. 

Coulson had promised that he’d protect them, these brave stragglers, the ones who’d survived the assault on the Triskelion and passed all the tests since then. May had been teaching hand-to-hand, Skye had trackers in all of their shoes, and Jemma had collected DNA samples to use in verifying identity. 

It wasn’t enough. 

Her little team of four trainees had been responding to an 0-8-4 in New Jersey when their transport was separated from the security detail. Turned out Jake the driver was Hydra, damn him. 

The first thing they’d done was toss all of their shoes into the river. The second thing had been blindfolds and blows to the head. 

Honestly, Jemma had been expecting worse. It was unusually civil of Hydra to bring in prisoners, even if their own ranks needed refilling. 

As Susan turned a corner and disappeared from view, Jemma caught sight of a far too familiar silhouette and her heart stuttered to a halt. 

Ward.

Jemma had been waiting for this moment for months.

She didn’t even realize she was moving until she heard the guards yelling at her to stop. When her fist connected with his very square jaw, he spun away from her but stayed on his feet.

She’d have to work on her left hook. 

"You cockroach. Fresh out of planes to toss friends from, I see."

He turned back to her, a half-smile on his face as he rubbed at his jaw. “Much better, Simmons. I can see you’ve been working with May.” He waved off the tense guards who had several automatic weapons pointed at her head (not even the highest percentage shot, one should always aim for the bodymass) and took her by the elbow, directing her back to the group. 

"Don’t you dare," she snarled. "Don’t pretend you were there for any reason other than your mission. Not after what you did to Skye. To Fitz. To Agent Hand. To all of us." 

Their direction changed with an abrupt yank of his hand. “No one told you?”

Her team was watching her fearfully, and she put her chin in the air in a show of confidence as they rounded to the back of the building. “I still haven’t received a satisfactory explanation for your release from prison, if that’s what you’re referring to.”

He made a few more quick turns and soon enough they were alone in the abandoned industrial complex. Jemma twisted her arm out of his grip and looked around for a weapon. 

Ward folded his arms. “Coulson released me.”

"I can’t imagine why."

"To do this."

She paused in assessing the potential force of a section of pipe when applied to his skull and blinked up at him. 

"Is that meant to elucidate matters for me?"

His face spasmed with amusement that faded quickly as she continued to glare at him. There had been a time she would have said she knew how to read his expression. No longer. 

"Training," he said shortly. "He wanted me to find the weaknesses in his security, help him make it better."

"By kidnapping whole teams?"

"If that’s what it takes."

Jemma just stared.

"He must not have told you because… well, everyone knows what you think of me."

"You threw me and Fitz out of a plane!" It burst out of her in pure indignation. "You killed Agent Hand in cold blood. You kidnapped Skye to force her to give up all of our secrets to Hydra. Everyone thinks the same thing of you."

Her words rang through the empty warehouse, little echoes bouncing back to them. 

"Not Coulson," he shrugged. "He believes in second chances."

She had gone to Agent Hand’s funeral, had stood up to tell the story of that last test that she and Trip had passed at the Hub. She had her own key to the hospital wing where they kept Fitz. 

"You are out of chances." The hot tear that rolled down her face infuriated her. "You could have turned back so many times. They all would have forgiven you."

He took a step closer, peering down at her. “But not you.”

"I’m not nearly as soft-hearted as I appear." She pressed her lips together, searching for control. "You’re not Mike Peterson. You had a choice and you made it."

He reached over, brushing a loose strand of hair out of her face and for a moment, a brief, weak, silly moment she pretended that it was before. Before he’d shown them his true center, the crumbling darkness and broken moral compass within. 

Then she reached up and pushed his hand away.

"As delightful as this chat has been, I do believe I’d like to get back to my interrogation now. I understood that I was to follow Susan."

******

Later that night, Grant Ward wrote two reports. In the first, he assured Coulson that Jemma Simmons was a fearless and fierce leader, aware of her surroundings and dedicated to her team. 

"Unlikely to buy into enemy interrogation tactics. Recommend further field training and better screening of low level staff."

In the second, the notes were somewhat different. 

"Remains angry and unforgiving. Tendency to hold onto resentment bodes well for future endeavors. Likely leverage point is the well-being of junior team members. Angry on behalf of others, but rarely mentioned herself. Hesitated to push operative away."

Raina opened the encrypted email with an intrigued arch of her eyebrow. 

******

Jemma got back to base at sunset. She saw Susan and Lou and Jin safely off home before she trudged to the ops center where Skye was deep in some encrypted code. 

"And how was your day, Jemma?" she asked herself out loud when her friend didn’t even look up. "Was being kidnapped fun, Jemma? Did you punch him in the face, Jemma?"

Skye rolled her eyes. “I had feeds going the whole time. It was a good punch. You’re getting better at undercover. He said you were resentful and care too much. Now hush while I break this.”

Three minutes later she whooped, and threw her display up on the main screen. They watched together as the program chased the receiver’s signal across countries. 

"You hesitated."

Jemma blinked. “I did what?”

"I get it. I mean, I revived the asshole. But you waited 2.3 seconds before you pushed him away at the end, there. He noticed."

Unaccountably furious, Jemma shoved out of her chair. “Well I’m sorry I’m not the next Melinda May. Some of us have to think before planting a dissolvable bug on a decorated specialist’s wrist.”

Skye just looked at her. “Not you.”

The tablet beeped and they both turned back to the screen. There was a little glowing dot hovering over the 10th arrondisement in Paris. 

"Got her." Skye’s triumph was restrained. It was the fourth time they’d located Raina, and she’d easliy slipped their net the first three. "I’ll call Coulson."

"If it’s all the same to you," Jemma said, "I’m turning in. It’s been a long day." 

Skye nodded, distracted by dialing their boss’s extension, and Jemma slipped away. 

She cried that night. Somewhere between exhaustion, relief, and the despair of being right again about Grant Ward, she found herself curled up around her pillow, in tears. 

When she closed her eyes, she still felt his hand, soft on her face. She hated him for it. She hated herself, too, for that one weak moment of wishing she could believe his lies of redemption, of change. 

She knew better than to listen to those whispers of her heart. 


	26. Attached

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma gets the flu at an inconvenient time, Trip gets her home.

"You go, I will stay here with this lovely box of tissues."

Trip’s only answer was a single raised eyebrow and a tilt of his head toward the door.

Jemma scowled. Well, she attempted to scowl, but her nose tickled partway through and she wound up sneezing her disapproval of his suggestion into a fresh tissue.

She really did feel awful. And even if they were deep in Hydra territory with Raina somewhere nearby “surely no one would mind if I just took a nap in this nice medical room that has both beds and tissues.”

"You picked a hell of a time to get the flu," Trip said, moving back and putting a cool hand on her forehead, "and yeah, I think the seven armed men sweeping this floor would mind."

He hesitated for a minute, then swept her up into his arms, tissues and all, and tucked her head down onto his chest. 

"You’re lucky I listen to my medical officer."

"You just think she’s pretty," Jemma pouted.

His laugh moved her hair as he edged around a corner. “Damn straight, but she’s also good with a needle. Although apparently she forgot to vaccinate herself.”

She was getting chills now, and snuggled closer. “It was on my list,” she whispered. 

"Higher, you need to be higher on your own damn list, Jemma," he murmured. Then they were moving and she was dizzy and she drifted off.

******

She woke up sweating and cold, wrapped in several soft blankets as the thrum of engines echoed through her head. He was asleep in a chair beside her bed.

Her throat was raw and her eyes itchy. Her bones ached and her stomach was not too sure about moving. But she reached out and slid her hand into his.

He woke right away and smiled down at her. “There she is.”

His face told her everything she needed to know. They were safe, she was home, he was here. 

She rolled toward him and ran into something pointy. “Why,” she asked in a gravelly voice, “exactly, am I cuddling a tissue box?”

"You are the weirdest patient," he said with a tired grin. "You got attached. Named it and everything. Don’t worry, I got video once we were clear."


	27. House party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trip / Simmons - meet while drunk at a party AU.

"Yeah, yeah ok, Skye." Jemma yelled to be heard over the pounding music. "You go dance, I’ll just, I’m just going to be here. It’s fine. Honestly."

She watched her friends disappear toward the dance floor and glowered a bit hazily at the liquor table. She was  _still_  not drunk enough to have interest in the crush of people sweating on each other in the living room of the house party.

"Clearly the keg is not cutting it," a voice laughed from behind her. 

She whirled around to see a very handsome man alarmingly close to her with a teasing grin on his face. 

"I beg your pardon?"

"You were glaring at that keg like it was your firstborn and you just caught it sneaking back in from a party like this one," he explained without missing a beat. His southern accent was light, but smooth, and Jemma’s eyes drifted down to where his biceps emerged from his shirt as he reached around her.

God, why was anatomy so distracting? It was just muscle tissue! “Very,  _very_ well defined muscle tissue.”

"You said that out loud," he whispered. "Maybe the beer is having some effect."

Jemma swung back toward the table in embarrassment. “No that’s just me and my inability to screen my own thoughts.”

He nudged her shoulder with his own. “It’s ok. I wouldn’t even be talking to you if I wasn’t four shots in. You’re beautiful. And top of the class. And did I mention beautiful?”

She grabbed an unopened bottle from the back of the table, feeling the flush on her face deepen. “You did, but you could say it again. Unless you’re trying to get tutoring help.”

"I’m passing organic chem just fine, thank you," he said. "I just think you’re great."

"You don’t even know me," Jemma said, glancing down at the bottle she’d chosen. Vodka. She could work with that.

"No, but I know Professor Coulson. And May trained a year above me. I hear good things. You a Sprite or Cranberry girl?" he asked. "I’ll grab some and meet you on the porch in 5?"

His smile was wide and his stance was open. She had any out she wanted. 

"Name first, please. I have to check your story. And Sprite’s good."

He pulled an exaggerated bow and she shook her head, smiling. “Antoine Triplett, at your service, Ms. Simmons.”

"Five minutes?"

"I’ll be there." He was gone with a wink, wading through the crowd of grad students to the mixer table.

Jemma had to find Skye and fill her in. She didn’t want her friend interrupting this. 


End file.
